All wars are horrible, but which American war was the worst?

Question

I think WWI was the worst because new technology was just coming into play and it was extremely treacherous.

Answer 1

By far the Civil War, everyone that died was an American, to this day the Civil War killed more Americans than any of the other wars fought by the U.S. Not only the lives, but the countless cities that were destroyed took an immense toll on the nation.

Answer 2

It depends entirely on what you define as the worst. For who?

As many other people have said, the Civil War was particularly brutal, given the state of battlefield medicine, the fact that the combatants were overwhelmingly American, and the introduction of new tactics, such as total war, to the battlefield.

The Indian Wars, although smaller, in my opinion, were far more brutal, involving the forced displacement, and/or slaughter of many, many people. How a nation behaves while conducting a war is just as important as the casualties they take, in determining what's "worst."

WWI introduced new technologies to the battlefield, such as poison gas, regular machine gun use, tanks, longer range artillery, and airplanes. The US did not suffer anywhere near the casualties that the European combatants did.

WWII furthered some of the technologies first introduced in WWI, such as tank warfare. It also saw the introduction of a mobile machine gun (the BAR, browning automatic rifle), flame throwers, long range bombers, carpet bombing, and, of course, introduced atomic weapons to the battlefield. In addition, the internment of Japanese Americans in camps is not something to be proud of.

Korea, Vietnam, and the current war in Iraq are good examples of wars of attrition, where little seems to actually be accomplished, and the war ends only when enough people have died.

Answer 3

The American Civil War. Caused the most American casualties and has effects that still resonate in different parts of the country today. As bas as WWI was, America was hardly even in it, most of the battle deaths and injuries being suffered by the European powers involved especially Germany, France, Russia and England.

Answer 4

By FAR the most deadly war for the US was the Civil War. The tactics did not match the improved technology of rifled muskets and rifled cannon. The tactics were more or less the same as used by Napolean, but the weapons were much more accurate over several times the range. Check the causulty figures.

Answer 5

Well... yes, all wars are horrible things.

The American Civil War was incredibly horrible because just about everyone who died in it was an American - it pitted brothers against brothers... and it was a "dirty" war ... bayonets and clubbing each other with rifles --- huge rows of people standing in big block formations as they fired into each other with cannons and muskets at close range.

America was really only peripherally involved in World War I ... that was much more horrible for the French than it was for the Americans. (Yes, machine guns and mustard gas made for some pretty hideous battlefields... and trench warfare is no fun for ANYONE) ...but as far as Americans go - we got into that conflict pretty late and our losses were small compared to others.

World War II was pretty bad... but once again - by the time the Americans got involved ... the Europeans had taken the brunt of the really horrific casualties.

Vietnam was just politically messed up... the Korean conflict was ugly... the current conflicts we've been involved in have been pretty sterile by comparison to those first two.

Answer 6

More Americans died in the civil war than all other American wars, combined. Industrialization was making Napoleonic tactics increasingly obsolete, and yet the generals clung to them even as the casualties piled up.

During the American Revolutionary war and the Napoleonic wars in Europe, Armies were small. Washington's entire Continental army numbered about 4,000 men, which is puny on a historical scale. Firearms were inaccurate, and slow firing, thus men were organized into regiments and fired volleys to increase the potential for damage. Canon-fire was brutal, but difficult to aim, and were little more than a metal ball that bounced along the ground until it hit something or someone. Hideously brutal to be sure, but inflicting much lighter damage than future artillery pieces.

The civil war used the same tactics, but with much more advanced technology. Regiments of soldiers faced a hail of bullets, which fired from stronger, more accurate, and faster loading rifles. Artillery pieces were more accurate, and were utilizing an increasingly deadly variety of shells, including exploding rounds and grapeshot rounds. Soldiers fixed bayonets and charged headfirst into machine gun nests, that is, unless they were expected to march stoically into the fire.

The increased brutality of war was offset by the generals by way of more advanced logistics. Increased communication and transportation technologies, such as the railroad, allowed armies in the tens and hundreds of thousands to be fielded.

The increased army sizes and increased stakes also led to the revival of the concept of total war. Napoleonic era armies fought with what could be called a sense of honor, if there is a such thing. Two armies met on the field, far away from cities or urban areas, fought, and one side retreated after a certain amount of casualties were inflicted, and typically negotiations commenced between the victor and defeated. This genteel style of warfare gave way to massed armies that threw themselves at each other, who pillaged farms and urban areas for food and supplies, who threw P.O.Ws in retention camps where they suffered from conditions comparable to the holocaust. There was no honor in this kind of warfare, even for the generals. Just meat to the grinder.

Of all the wars of history, the civil war was among the most brutal ever waged. It gets my somber vote as the most terrible American war.

Answer 7

The Civil War was easily the worst war since you had Americans fighting Americans on American soil. There were many battles in which brother fought against brother and father against son. In fact, there was a naval battle in which the Union father boarded a captured Confederate vessel to say goodbye to his Confederate son who was mortally wounded in the fighting.

Answer 8

How about the Civil War? There was no technology, no medicine, limbs were sawed off in crude battlefield hospitals with rusty saws and no anesthesia. Families fighting each other, kids too young to fight running off and joining the war.

Answer 9

The American Civil War was the worst as far as casualties. All casualties were Americans. More than 20,000 Americans died at the battle of Antietam.....in one day.
More Americans died during the civil war than in all other conflicts we've been involved with.....added together.

Answer 10

Vietnam